Today I Learned #2: Gone for a Wiki Walk

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aimeeandbeatles

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Original thread here.

Post interesting things you learned at some point within the last 24 hours. Or uninteresting things.

the_problem_with_wikipedia.png


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Today I learned that the folks over at Explain XKCD actually figured out the paths between those Wikipedia pages. And that finding links between seemingly unrelated articles is actually a game.
 
TIL that staff would not let the original TIL thread reach 10,000 posts. :(
 
Recently I learned that during Yuri Gagarin's first flight into space, he had to parachute out of his spacecraft because the Soviets hadn't figured out a way for the pilot to safely land while remaining inside the spacecraft. The Soviets lied about this during the press release because it would have been embarrassing internationally if word had gotten out that they couldn't land their pilots safely and because it technically wouldn't have counted as a successful spaceflight according to the international organization which keeps track of such things.
 
I like your shoes. Where'd you get them, clown school?
Every so often, inline speed skates come through our local Goodwill. One of the employees called them clown skates while talking to my wife, and now she likes to talk about my clown skates, which I bought used but not from Goodwill. (Mine have 4 110 mm wheels on each, so they are about 45 cm long.)
 
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I like the title. :)
 
TIL that Obidiah is the shortest book of the Bible. I didn't even know there was a book of Obidiah before today :blush:

There is a whole row of these lesser known prophets in the bible
After the book Obidiah comes the book Jonah, the guy who was swallowed by that whale... three days ofc
 
TIL that the USA 'only' has 10 cities with a population 1million+.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population

For some reason I thought it would have been many more.


A lot of the time they talk about the 'urban area' population. And that extends further than just what is in the geographic area covered by that city's government. So it's common to talk about Los Angeles as 10mil, rather than the 3mil on that list. And Washington as 3mil, rather than under a million. If you only follow the lines on the map, you get a different answer than what people think of as part of the city.
 
TIL

Many things about Steven Seagal, starting from watching Karo Parisyan tells a story of how Gene LaBell, a martial artist and judo legend, accept Seagal challenge to try to choke him, which he did, and pretty much put him to sleep and caused him to defecate and urinate in his pant.

From there I learn couple more things about Steven Seagal, that he has a lot of sexual assault allegation from harassment to rape allegation. He is also known to be mean and harsh to the stunt man, that resulted in broken arms and other kind of injuries. In a nutshell, I just learn that he is not only a joke, but also a bung hole. Back-then I thought he was funny/silly, but now he is worst than a filth to me.
 
A lot of the time they talk about the 'urban area' population. And that extends further than just what is in the geographic area covered by that city's government.

Same here. e.g. Manchester the city has a population of approx. 0.5m, but Manchester the urban area has a popn of about 2.5m.

I guess you choose the definition that suits your argument!!
 
A lot of the time they talk about the 'urban area' population. And that extends further than just what is in the geographic area covered by that city's government. So it's common to talk about Los Angeles as 10mil, rather than the 3mil on that list. And Washington as 3mil, rather than under a million. If you only follow the lines on the map, you get a different answer than what people think of as part of the city.

Same here. e.g. Manchester the city has a population of approx. 0.5m, but Manchester the urban area has a popn of about 2.5m.

I guess you choose the definition that suits your argument!!

The metropolitan area of Swansea includes the all of the counties of Swansea, Neath Port Talbot, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire, the coastline of Pembrokeshire is a national park.
 
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